Iceland Poppies focus stacked

[Neilmac50]

My partner was given some Iceland Poppies as a present and having never seen these flowers before I was fascinated by there textures.This is a 17 image stacked photo using Helicon Focus and some editing in Nik Colour EFX Pro.Camera Nikon D3s and a Nikkor 105mm micro lens.

[Daisy Mae]

Lovely frame filling burst of colour with lots of texture.....cheers my day Neil

[Mark von Kanel]

Lovely frame filling burst of colour with lots of texture.....cheers my day Neil

+1 good shot for a stock agency, bet it would sell well!

[FrankMi]

An excellent focus stacking result and I love to see a really sharp subject.

I do find the composition quite busy owing to both the bright reds at the top border and the sharp greens at the bottom pulling the eye away from the Poppy blossoms. I usually find that making the subject razor sharp but providing some places in the image where the eye can rest to work better.

[Neilmac50]

Thanks for your kind replies, I did the focussing manually using the lens and did wonder where to stop it and I can see your point of view Frank,I also thought maybe a bit more areas where the image was darker to add some contrast would have helped.

[Bobobird]

It IS a beautiful image.

This focus stacking thing keep eluding me. Just cannot seem to get them to merge well in either PS or Zerene. Always appears that the points I want sharp are not and the parts I dont want sharp are... Weird.

[Coinneachmhor]

Fantastic texture Neil - they look like a soft cotton or fragile paper and you've captured this very well. I wonder if cropping out the left and bottom edges slightly so that the white poppy covered most of the bottom left corner would make the image less busy. Great image regardless.

[escaladieu]

Nice job - which required lots of patience !

J

[Rhoads238]

Beautiful image. So many interesting elements. This must have been a lengthily process.